The cost of cleanliness
For almost two years, the French have been collecting Alexandria's garbage. Dena Rashed heads north to report on the dynamics of private waste management
The sun is setting on the city of Alexandria -- the Corniche is glittering, the water sparkling and the city looks like the perfect place to spend the upcoming summer holiday. With the opening of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and the renovation of the Corniche, the city seems well on its way to reviving its illustrious past.
The picture would be nearly idyllic if it were not for all the garbage. In a city of almost 4 million inhabitants, who dispense approximately 3,000 tonnes of garbage daily, the job of cleaning up Alexandria is daunting to say the least. But as garbage has been long identified as one of the city's major handicaps, Alexandria was the first Egyptian city to sign a contract with a foreign company to manage its solid waste.
The French company Onyx signed the deal with the governorate of Alexandria on 3 September 2000. The first foreign company to enter the waste management business in Egypt, Onyx has come under scrutiny since day one. Under the agreement, Onyx is responsible for the collection of household wastes, manual and electronic sweeping and washing of the streets, as well as cleaning beaches and providing and emptying garbage containers on the thoroughfares. Their job also includes collecting and treating medical wastes and processing wastes in a sanitary landfill.
"I believe that so far they have done a very good job. You should have seen the shanty areas in Alexandria before the company started its work," said Khamis, who has adopted the quaint surname of Bondira (slang for taxi metre). Bondira, predictably, is a taxi driver. His job has allowed him to take stock of the changes that have occurred in the city. "Alexandria has developed immensely over these past three years, yet there are still individuals who do not respect that and do not keep the city clean. But they are probably from outside the city," he said.
Enter the inner alleyways that comprise the city's heart and one will note that Alexandria is far from spotless. Plastic bags and trash litter the roads. Ahmed Sediq, who lives and works in the low-income Moharam Bey district, does not blame Onyx. Rather, he says, "Everyone is to blame." He says the city was much worse before Onyx came to town. "There used to be huge piles of garbage that people deposited in that area, but now it is clean," he said, pointing to a street corner. "While the company cleans in the morning, the people have to keep things in order until the company comes to clean up at night. And that does not happen on this street." He explained that residents often move the garbage containers away from their homes because they smell bad. This makes the bins less accessible and as a result, refuse finds its way into the street.
Many of the residents of Moharam Bey interviewed by Al-Ahram Weekly complained that because there are not enough garbage bins on the streets, some have no choice but to dispose of their trash in the streets. Others argued that the containers have not been cleaned or disinfected for months, leaving the streets foul smelling.
El-Sayed Moussa, the owner of a furniture shop in Moharam Bey, offered several suggestions for the company. "They have to either keep these containers clean or renovate them, since some of them are broken. Besides, they should keep the names of the streets and the numbers of the buildings on them so that people do not move them."
Photographer Mohamed Mustafa, who lives downtown, argued that the system is fraught with shortcomings. "The number of manual labourers involved in the process of collection has been reduced, and this is very evident on the streets. This must affect the company's performance," he argued. Mustafa noted that in his neighbourhood, "textile, pickle and pickled fish factories steal the containers and use them to store their products and Onyx has come to replace the missing receptacles."
"It is true that the number of containers we put on to the streets have decreased," the managing director of Onyx, Frederic Duvelle, told the Weekly. "We started out by placing 100,000 containers in the 18 districts we covered. Fifteen thousand were stolen. What can we do about that?" As for the rancid-smelling containers, Duvelle said that the one of the two machines used to clean them has been broken for the past month and a half. "Only one was functioning, but we are expecting two new ones in the coming weeks, and that will certainly make a difference."
Despite these problems, Duvelle argued that Onyx's work has been improving. "You have to keep in mind that we had to deal with a city that suffered from many years of non-service," he added.
He stated that the number of employees in the company has decreased since they first launched the project. "It is true that our staff has decreased. But it is normal that you start a project with a big number of labourers and then after several months of field work you can estimate how many workers you really need. The workers that were discharged were not from Alexandria but from other governorates," he added. Duvelle indicated that so far 3,500 employees are adequate to meet the company's requirements.
When Onyx first arrived in Alexandria, the traditional garbage collectors, called zabaleen, were understandably concerned about their future. A gentleman's agreement was made at the time which stipulated that the company would collect garbage and allow the zabaleen to remove whatever items they wanted from the containers. Duvelle believes that the agreement is still functioning and is satisfactory to all. "They take the garbage they want as long as they don't mess up the place."
Duvelle added that the zabaleen are welcome to join in the new recycling factory that will open next year. "We will certainly need their expertise in sorting at the new factory," he added. The company already administers three recycling plants which produce composites. These process only approximately 400 tonnes out of the total 3,000 tonnes of garbage gathered each day.
While the efficiency of Onyx's trash collection programmes is debatable, another point of controversy among Alexandria residents involves the garbage collection fees, particularly those paid by shop owners. The governorate and the Ministry of Electricity have traditionally been responsible for collecting garbage retrieval fees. The garbage fee is based on an index determined by the type of property and the consumption of electricity. As the consumption of electricity increases, so does the garbage fee. So far, shop owners pay the highest fees.
In a tiny shop downtown sits Mohamed Hussein. His modest shop has no neon lights or fancy signs -- a single light bulb is the only signal that the store is open for business. "I have to say I am satisfied with the cleaning service, but I dispose of very little garbage from my shop and my electricity consumption is low. I do not understand why I have to pay LE10 as a garbage collection fee," he said.
For Adel Allam, who owns a barbershop, keeping his premises clean has become expensive. "I love cleanliness, I really do. But now I have a monthly budget allocated for cleanliness," he said. "Two per cent of the monthly rent of the shop is for cleaning. I pay another LE30 to LE35 as a garbage collection fee on top of the electricity bill, not to mention the other garbage collection fee I pay for at house, which adds up to almost LE50 per month." Although Allam complains of the garbage collection fees he has to pay, he cherishes a clean environment. "Our area has become much better, but still I find some young people from the nearby cinema throwing away their trash in front of my shop. It just makes me very angry," he added.
Even more controversial than the issue of collection fees, however, is the sanitary landfill in Borg Al-Arab -- an area of the north coast that is a popular summer playground for well-to-do Egyptians. Onyx assumed control of the site on 23 June 2001 and the first waste deliveries were made there on 4 October 2001. However, in August 2002, complaints were filed by residents of the resort villages near the landfill.
Residents say that the landfill produces an intolerable stench in addition to a burgeoning population of flies and mosquitoes. Although Prime Minister Atef Ebeid visited the site to determine whether it posed a threat to the nearby holiday resorts, it is unclear whether the prime minister requested that the landfill be relocated at that time. Almost a year after Ebeid's visit, the 100- feddan landfill has received 1.1 million tonnes of waste.
In what seems to be a pre-emptive move to appease angry holiday makers, Ebeid made a quick visit to the site last Sunday and expressed dissatisfaction with the location of the site and according to statements made to the press at the site, he ordered the transfer of the landfill to another location within 30 days. According to Safaaeddin Kamel, the deputy governor of Alexandria, the govnermorate will work on the transfer of the site but it remains unclear when this will take palce and to which of the seven other suggested site areas.
This may come as good news to the bedouins who live 20 to 30 metres away from the site and have repeatedly complained that the landfill has turned their lives into a living nightmare. Sitting on the steps of his house with his wife and four children, Ali Idris said that nothing has been the same since the landfill started functioning.
"We are lucky that today the wind is blowing from the sea to the desert. Otherwise, the awful odour would be back," said Idris. His neighbour, Nekawa Saber, a Bedouin woman in her 70s who lives adjacent to the landfill, said, "Sometimes it is so bad at night we can't sleep."
Idris indicated that the flies have adversely affected his crop of figs. "Also, my pigeons and those of my neighbour died because they drank the water that comes from the waste." His wife displayed the rash that her three-year-old son suffers from, which she attributes to the nearby trash site.
Duvelle concedes that the Bedouins should not live next to the landfill. He suggests that they move despite the fact that they inhabited the area long before the site was built. "I think there is an exaggeration in what they are saying. One of the Bedouins came to me arguing that 500 of his pigeons were dead. I told him bring them to me and that we would compensate him for them. But he never showed up with the pigeons, so how can I be sure that it is true?" he asked.
According to Kamel, the land inhabited by the Bedouins does not belong to them in the first place. "They are probably adversely affected by the garbage but at the same time they seized these lands without legal permits, so they are there illegally," he said.
Kamel asserted that the holiday resorts near the landfill which are making the complaints also contribute to environmental degradation because they do not properly dispose of sewage. "They have been using untreated sewage water to irrigate their gardens. So they share part of the blame with regards to the smell and the flies," he said.
The burning question now is whether to move the landfill. "We were offered the site, and we did not have a say as to whether it was a good place or a bad place," said Duvelle.
The site was selected by the governorate of Alexandria and the Ministry of Environmental Affairs in part because they wanted the landfill to be located within 100 kilometres of the city.
Site Manager Walid El-Morsi says, "The site has a capacity of 1 million tonnes per year. So far we have covered one out of 12 cells in the landfill." El-Morsi believes that the tests that have been conducted to measure pollution generated by the landfill prove that the construction of the site did not make a significant impact on the environment of the area.
Duvelle added that the landfill's waste treatment techniques have been modified in order to accommodate environmental concerns. "We found out after a while that the techniques used in the landfill were not suitable for the climate of the area, so we used an aeration technique. We just needed some time to put all that in order."
Duvelle asserted that the company has no control on the location or re-location of the site. "The contract does not bind us to pay for the expenses of moving the site to another area, and moving it means millions of pounds of reinvestment. The cost will be great."
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 5 -11 June 2003 (Issue No. 641)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/641/sc6.htm